Yes, Aliev is an authoritarian ruler, so is Putin and President of Armenia. I'd say Putin is much worse. He is a war criminal for what he has done and is continuing doing in Chechnya and Georgia; killings of your colleagues, Russian journalists; poisoning of Litwinenko with radioactive materials in London, and so on. Just recently, he rigged the presidential elections in Russia, and appointed himself as a president of Russia for another eight years.
Is the Economist going to call for the boycott of the Winter Olympics in Sochi?
I did not hear similar calls from the West when Russia hosted the Eurovision. Is the Gazprom money to sweet, or Russia's nuclear weapons are too scary?

We're talking about a popularity contest between bands, right? What is the worst that could happen? The wrong band gets picked? That generally happens anyway, I'm sure. This doesn't strike me as an issue to stand firm on one's liberal democratic principles. The risk of looking foolish is high.

What's the problem with that article about Armenia's elections exactly? It correctly points out there were allegations of fraud and other problems. It correctly points out there are still problems. It correctly points out that 8 people were killed last time and this time nobody died. Would you like for the economist to write "40 armenians were killed by their government" even though it's not true? Don't worry about Armenia every time somebody points out the problems in YOUR country. Sorry, Aliev is a near-dictator. That has nothing to do with Armenia.

The problem of course is that the winner of the previous year gets to stage the show the next year because noone wants to go to the expense; in effect it's a punishment for winning the contest. Given that, expecting the poll tax payers of the UK (aka TV licence fee) to pick up the tab is a non-starter. But we can hope that the negative publicity that these sorts of reports generate will do some good - and of course there's always a chance that someone will launch a protest in some way on the night (no - I really really don't know anything about it; I'm just hoping!)

In this article it was written about Eurovision, even not any mention of Armenia! It is interesting that you want the attention of the whole international media to be fixed on Armenia, but some events happen also in Azerbaijan. And if you don't like the covering of those events, it is the matter of Azerbaijan's policy, and biased covering or Armenia have nothing to do with that!

This is the whole problem in this region - and as somebody living in Armenia I would say we are guilty of it too. These countries have major domestic policy issues; but every time that is pointed out internationally we want to point to the other one and say "see, they are worse". You had eurovision in your country and your government obviously was happy about that based on how it spent and reacted. With that, comes attention. So people are correctly writing about your problems. You should view that as an opportunity to take into account what the world has to say AND FIX YOUR PROBLEMS. I watched Armenia's election and am actively trying to make that process better for our presidential election next February. I never went on a message board and said, "It's not fair economist wrote about Armenias bad elections. Azerbaijan is doing this this this this". Trust me, when your country deserves to have good things written about it's human rights, that will happen. Right now, by all accounts, you don't deserve it. Fix your problems, don't worry so much about Armenia.

I largely agree with the substance of this article, but disagree with its conclusions. If a non-political entity is being used for political ends, the solution is not to turn the non-political entity political. Doing so risks isolating countries that will not meet the standards and will likely result in boycotts of all stripes. A better solution would be for political attendees to stage a boycott on the grounds highlighted in this article, in much the same way as the Ukraine/EuroCup event. That allows for non-political organization to bring people together while at the same time allowing political messages to be sent by countries that wish to do so.

I have to agree with atashi: Already when countries are allowed to compete in the Eurovision, they are included in the community and togetherness that the competition is building up. I think it's a bit hypocritical to wake up and realise some countries mistreat their citizens on the day that they actually win the competition.

A discussion about the criteria required to be allowed to participate countries would be a really important one. I think it's cowardly of ESC to dismiss any "political" arguments for not allowing countries to participate or arrange competitions.

I don't think Azerbaijan is the only country that would be in danger be disqualified for ESC if requirements like freedom of speech in the country would be considered.

But your own summary of that article about Armenia tells a lot about how the Economist approaches covering the situation in Armenia and in Azerbaijan. If I were to summarize it, this article says "yeeah, there were some allegations of fraud and all that stuff, but we see significant improvement and otherwise all is good"... I am just very interested why nobody at Economist covers that ultra-nationalism and hate towards other nationalities widespead in Armenia, and in fact, among Armenians, whereever they are. That's my point!

If you are wondering why I keep asking about reaction to events in Armenia, think about this situation: Armenia launched a war against Azerbaijan and occupied nearly 20 per cent of its territories. While Azerbaijan's capacity to tell the world that is really happening out here was just imrpoving, thanks to Armenian lobbysts (I generally assume the Economist is significantly influenced by them) the US gov't refused to provide any assistance to the Azerbaijani gov't and, in fact, its people. The reason they gave - Azerbaijan refused to have any economic ties with Armenia (they had to provide some reason, after all). I mean, it is like saying "yes, we know these guys, Armenians, are attacking you, but if you want to get some help from us, you gotta start doing business with them... even though they are attacking you". What the heck, I may ask!

I would wonder what the Economist has written about this???

We have seen this propaganda crap, and to me this is just why some many things in this world is so much damn wrong...

So do not ask me why I am asking the questions I am asking. In the meantime, I'll be looking to see some existing articles about Armenia and its ultra-nationalism.

DuchImport,
I do agree with you. The response hardly can be more isolation. It has been proven time and again that isolation leads to a faster and deeper descend into autocracy and dictatorship. One good thing Eurovision has done for Azerbaijan is that international media are talking about its human rights problems, the forceful eviction of people to make room for the new concert hall, the extravaganza of petrodollar skyscrapers in the face of poverty. Many did not know about these things before, and wouldn't had not hundreds of foreign journalists visited Baku because of the ESC. I hardly see stories about central Asian countries (of which you hardly find a democratic one) in the international media.

You wrote:
"What is the worst that could happen? The wrong band gets picked?"
Are you aware that poor people were evicted from their homes WITHOUT court orders in order to build the necessary palaces to host the Eurovision Song Contest? If it had happened to you and your old sick parents and you were standing with nothing, had your main worry still been that "the wrong band gets picked"?
Contrary to you, I think at a bare minimum international organizations should demand from countries hosting prestigious events to treat their own (and other) citizens directly affected by the events fairly. Otherwise it shouldn't be hard to tell such regimes that they are really not mature enough.